Sunday, 5 July 2015

Berlin Travel Guide Part 2: Photo Diary

Back to Berlin today for the final instalment of my Berlin travels at the beginning of June! I am sitting in the garden whilst typing this, so I'm not feeling as bummed out about being back in the UK as I once was, and today I'm taking you through a few of the leftover snaps I've wanted to share, a mix of beautiful Berlin and of course, there is food. Always...As we know a couple of illustrators that live in the area, we were able to hit up a few spots from their recommendations, which was ace! Local eateries that we would have missed out on if it weren't for them.Of course our first point of call was a burger, so we hit up Burgermeister, a stand in the heart of the busy crossroads in Kreuzberg (literally, it was in the middle of the road) to fill our stomachs after a long day of travelling. The hustle around the stand is always a good sign, and the burger was pretty good!

Fast forward to the next morning, and we headed back down to kreuzberg to sample some Berlin coffee and, so we'd heard, the best cheesecake (spoiler - it was amazing) from Five Elephant Coffee & Cake Shop. Their belief is to open conversation about coffee and make sure there is an open understanding surrounding where the beans were sourced, what the process was, and build relationships with the farmers that take it from the farms, to the cup. I don't drink coffee, but I have firm confirmation from Adam that it was a darn good cup. I can, however speak on behalf of the cheesecake and it was bloody good! We all know I have a major sweet tooth and it was pure, creamy, baked goodness. (I also have a weakness for tote bags and picked up one of theirs which I posted on Instagram)

A stroll through Kreuzberg, takes you down to the East Side Gallery - Aka, the Berlin wall - in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. I won't go into too much of a history lesson, but it is a 1.5km memorial on the wall that divided East and West Berlin during 1961-1989. Now covered in graffiti and illustrations from 102 artists.

From the East Side Gallery we headed to the centre of Berlin and the high point of the Berlin skyline, the TV tower. Adam and I went up to the viewing platform, which is 203 metres high with a 360 view of the city, perfect viewing of all the hot spots - The Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor, It was like Google maps in reality! Paha! Unfortunately, none of the pictures I took whilst up there came to much because of the glass window reflection, but trust me, it was awesome.

Another stop off for food before we had to head to catch our flight home, and we ended up at Burritos Dolores. Estee [EssieButton] was actually in Berlin with Fran [Frannerd] at the same time as us and I saw this spot on her Snapchat and was like YES! I'm always up for a Burrito, and this one was a whopper. Big ol' Cali style. I'd like I say it was a struggle to eat it all, but who am I kidding... ;)